A few weeks ago i was asked to shoot Liam Firus….to a lot of you like myself  asked who is Liam? Well i found out, not only was he a super nice kid but also the Canadian National Figure Skating Champion 2010 & 2011.

The chosen rink for the shoot was the Agridome next to the PNE  Vancouver. Having shot lots of hockey over the years in many different rinks i had to say this one was a great choice. Like every rink it had it’s challenges with glass 90% of the way around the ice limiting angles and good light to the human eye but terrible light for a camera even with the top of the line lenses.

After a quick introduction to Lorna Bauer, Liams coach the camera started clicking. Panning across the ice keeping Liam in the cross hairs gave me a real close up view of the concentration a fluidity that he has on the ice. After what seemed to be only a five minute warm up he launched off the ice to a height i can only relate to basketball players and spun quicker than i thought fathomably possible. Taking me a little by surprise i then had to leave a little bit more play in the in the framing of the shots. One thing this rink had to offer was an upstairs gallery which gave me the opportunity to shoot down onto the ice giving myself a nice white canvas to work with. Being a big fan of the slow shutter shots this gave me a great opportunity for some great arty movement shots.

After only a 45 minute ice time it was all over seemed like the time just disappeared. Although short, it was a great experience and an eye opener to see this talent in front of my eyes. A massive thanks to Liam, Lorna and Mark for this opportunity and wish Liam all the best in 2012 and the future.

Geek Section: Well not much too it. In terms of freezing the action the shutter speed was a minimum of 400 and in doing this the apature was maxed at 2.8 on a Canon 70-200mm f2.8 L. The ISO was also stretched at 4000 occasionally 6400 so evidently a bit of noise reduction was needed in the post production.